The movie Spaceballs came out in 1987 and I can honestly say I still love watching it to this day. It’s a great sendup of Star Wars and one of Mel Brooks’ more solid pieces of work.

There’s a bit where the reporter on the TV announces an upcoming review for the new movie, “Rocky Five…..Thousand!” Well, it seems that we maybe not be that far off in reality from this movie spoof.

Believe it or not, it was announced this week a new Rocky movie was in development. It’s a spin-off/continuation of sorts, titled “Creed”, after Apollo Creed, who died in arguably the best of the series, Rocky IV.

The story is set to feature Creed’s grandson, played by Michael B Jordan, as the title character, He’s described as “wealthy and privileged” but wants to follow the family path into boxing, against his family’s wishes. He plans to enlist the help of Rocky Balboa, who at this point should have literally 1 active brain cell functioning, to not-so eagerly help aid him in realizing his boxing quest.

Aside from another needless Stallone sequel (cough… Rambo), I feel this project is dead in the water before it shoots one single frame. Aside from obvious reasons, one glaringly sticks out.

Who still cares about Boxing?

Go ahead, name the WBC, or the WBA Heavyweight champion. Got it? Something Russian, right? Oh, you don’t know, and neither to a majority of sports or movie fans. Can you even name all the boxing organizations? Good luck

If you made a Hockey movie now, it would go unnoticed and that’s still more popular. Hell go to any sports website and look for boxing. It’s buried in “other sports” along with Horse Racing and WNBA.

What really surprised me to a degree was where this movie was missing the boat. Why it’s irrelevant and how that could be fixed.

Make Creed an MMA fighter.

MMA is huge, and growing and that’s can’t be denied. Fighter who once might have went into boxing now gravitate to Mixed Martial Arts. The sport actually gets prime time network showing, does well on PPV and has fighters and organizations like UFC and Bellator that people know.

Boxing as it exists is severely and definitely in downfall. The nails are in, just waiting for the last hammers to fall. It’s corrupt, the fights have little meaning or relevance other than the fights people want to see that won’t happen because of politicking and record padding. For a movie to do well, the topic would need to be somewhat relevant and topical and there would need to be some interest from the jump and making this about boxing, you sell 100 tickets opening day, or having fun going “straight to Blu-Ray.”

Here’s why MMA is the better way to go over boxing.

The premise is that as the grandson of Apollo Creed is rich and doesn’t need to fight. So he’s essentially fighting because he wants to fight. He doesn’t need money so fighting in MMA, where arguement over fighter pay have been commonplace. Creed’s fighting for pride, for the Creed name.

He’ll also have a greater stage making the crossover. In boxing, he might come off as an entitled fighter feeling he has a place just because of his name, whereas in MMA, he has to prove himself.

Let’s also not forget this is a Rocky film, so we can use the Rocky framework to address this point.

Creed is Creed, has the legacy, but wants to prove he’s more than an entitled fighter, with money, with the name and be someone. He fight’s his way through the ranks, but loses and wins his first few fights. The whole time, everyone is telling him it’s a mistake, he shouldn’t do it, be happy being rich and comfortable. He pushes on. He know’s he needs to make a change to get better.

Recently, many UFC fighters have focused on bringing in boxing coaches to improve their standup. Boxing coaches working with MMA fighters is now common, and almost a rule for improving striking.

Creed, knowing he needs to improve to prove his heart and reputation contacts Rocky Balboa to train him to better his striking. At first, he doesn’t want to help, since he doesn’t want to see him fight, he doesn’t get MMA, he thinks it’s more dangerous than boxing… whatever.

A big PPV is on the line, and one of the Main Event fighters drops out. It could throw the whole card on the line. Creed has a spot on the undercard and guess what – he steps up to take the fight. The champ doesn’t mind, because the name alone will sell better, and he’ll make more money and get a better buy rate. Plus, he’s not that experienced, so it should be an easy fight and an easy win.

This follows the Rocky formula without feeling misplace by being an MMA film. It’s a fight film, it’s a legacy film and it becomes a human interest piece where regardless of whether it’s Boxing or MMA, there’s enough there for anyone to connect to. It keeps the Rocky legacy going and the potential to go even further. You can have Creed lose, but have an amazing fight. He takes the champ to the limit in 5 rounds. He earns the respect of his coach, of the fans and of the champs and you get an instant sequel.